Julia - The Early Years
First up are some early images of Julia, the initial scan photo, her sporting her scratch mittens and on her 2nd birthday with her cake made by her Dad!
This is the first image we ever had of Julia and as you can see it's a scan image taken whilst I was still pregnant. We had always hoped to have a girl and did what we could to try and tip the balance in our favour.
When she finally arrived on 3rd October 1991 I was so much the proud Mum and that feeling has never subsided.
Here she is with me, not long after we arrived back home. The scratch mittens were an embarrassing but necessary evil to stop her scratching her face, they look kind of like boxing gloves don't they?
This image was taken at the Country & Western club on Julia's 2nd birthday and the cake was made for her by her Dad - I am NOT a domestic goddess by any stretch of the imagination!
Next we have a photo with her Uncle Darren on her 8th birthday I believe, an Easter Poem she did at school and strutting her stuff on the dance floor with James and her little mate Jaid.
This is Julia with my brother Darren when they were down for Julia's 8th birthday - how times flies! She's always been more than happy to pose in front of a camera which is pretty fortunate for me as I sometimes need someone to practice on when I'm wielding my camera about!
The Easter poem was done by Julia when she was at school and is only one of a myriad of school "trophies" that I have kept over the years.
This image is of Julia doing her thing on the dance floor at the Texas Moon, accompanied by James her boyfriend and her little mate Jaid - who is always trying to copy Julia!
Julia with James @ The Texas Moon CMC on her 16th birthday - ahhhh!
Posing For Mum!
This one was taken by me at the Isle of Wight zoo and Julia is sporting her Biba sunglasses. As usual she's in her trademark black even on a sunny and relatively warm day ;-)
This image is the two of us taken by Julia (she's very adept at taking self-portraits) whilst we were visiting the Botanical Gardens at Ventnor. As you can see she is far better at posing than me but its good to have some photos of the two of us together as I'm usually the one taking them.
Young Apprenticeship Scheme
This photo shows Julia with her certificates awarded to her as part of the Young Apprenticeship scheme that she did in Art and Design at Mid-Kent College (City Way). Julia joined this scheme at the start of her GCSE year rather than do Art & Design at school. She has a passion for the subject and wanted to explore it in more depth than the GCSE would have allowed her to do. She had to attend an interview and entrance exam at the college in order to be accepted onto the scheme as it involved being out of school two days at week to attend college, but Julia being the mature girl she is was readily accepted onto the scheme and flourished in the college atmosphere. So much so that she is back at Mid-Kent College (City Way) for a two year Advanced Diploma in the Creative Arts which will be her ticket into University if she excels as well at this course as she did the last one.
This Julia's certificate for the
BTEC First Diploma in Art & Design
Highly Commended
For a positive attitude to learning
This Julia's certificate for the
Young Apprentices
Art & Design Team Award
This is Julia's official
BTEC First Diploma Certificate
in
Art & Design
with
Grade Distinction
Chatham South Leaver's Presentation Evening
These next images were taken at Julia's old school, Chatham South Secondary School on their Leaver's presentation evening held on 2nd December 2008.
Julia was awarded a prize for her Science BTEC and the Nigel Fraser Memorial Award for her unselfish attitude towards her fellow students and the staff throughout her time at school.
This is Julia being given her Science award. The chap handing out the awards that evening was Detective Sergeant Wendell Henry.
This is Miss Williams, Academic Counsellor to Year 11 for 2007/8, who did the speech for the Nigel Fraser Award and finally named Julia as its recipient for 2008.
This is Julia being presented with the Nigel Fraser Award.
Here's the award in all its glory, I was unbelievably proud to hear Julia's name called out for this award as it was all so totally unexpected. Apparently Julia spoke to Miss Williams about it afterwards ( she wasn't sure if she got to keep the trophy forever!) and Miss Williams told her it was unanimous amongst the staff that Julia should win the award for 2008.
It takes pride of place at home and you can say what you like about academic awards etc. but to be awarded for the type of person you are - that's something else entirely.
Julia's First Car
Having just passed her driving test, Julia took possession of her first car last Friday, 12th June. She's the proud owner of a Rover Cityrover Select and is busy showing it off around town. She's enjoying the freedom that the car gives her in that she can now go where she likes without having to rely on either public transport or a lift off someone. It also has the added bonus that I'll get chauffeured around at the weekends at least, can't see her getting up early on her days off to take me into work!
Here she is standing alongside her pride and joy - taken last night just before she drove us to the Texas Moon for our usual evening of Country & Western linedancing.
She's already "pimped" her ride by putting in new seat covers, a snazzy cushion on the backseat and some cuddly danglies in the rear quarter light windows - Pooh Bear and some black fluffy dice. I got to choose Eeyore for the aerial bopper :-)
Art in Action - I
On the week commencing 6th July 2009, Julia and her fellow art students at Mid-Kent College (City Way) got ready to put on their first exhibition at Chatham's Historic Dockyard. The theme was the emotions and feelings about war and each student erected at least one installation in Slip 3 of the Dockyard area. Julia, being Julia, had done two pieces, "The Last Flight" and "A Message Within". Each piece took many hours to prepare and she spent the evening before finishing off "A Message Within" by setting fire to the material to make it look more distressed and old. The material itself had been used to convey the war poem "Dulce et Decorum Est" by Wilfred Owen, which describes life in the trenches of WW1 and at its heart goes against the propaganda that "It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country" the English translation of the last line of the poem (and part of the title). "The Last Flight" was made up of planes created out of drinks bottles and suspended using fishing wire from hoops, the planes interspersed with poppies and crosses. The hoops were held in place using a pole and the whole installation stood in sand which was adorned with more poppies and crosses.
Between the 9th and 11th of July the general public were invited to come along and view the students work and each had a book in which people could leave their comments on the art work. A questionnaire was also available for a wider view of the whole project.
Here's Julia with her two installations:-
"A Last Flight" by Julia
"The Last Flight" was inspired by the dockyard. I decided on creating a set of cascading planes which would show people who lost their lives in the war. The poppies are there to show they will always be remembered. With a few extra things to help people interact. Quote by Julia.
Comment from Mervyn: "That last flight home in a C10 is familiar to us all now. Direct and powerful as ever Julia"
"A Message Within" by Julia
"A Message Within" is a raw emotional piece with feelings, pain and anger spilling out and filling the room. It is an amazing piece focusing on the pain and death of soldiers and also on modern time interaction. My piece is all about knowing that your loved ones are always near even if they are far away. I decided to use the poem by Wilfred Owen - Dulce Et Decorum Est, which I then re-designed and created a secret message within. This message is from the heart of a woman whose had to leave her love, son, etc. because he joined the army. Quote by Julia.
(The hidden message reads - I want you but they need you)
Comment - "Julia, it was wonderful to meet you and hear you explain your work. You have obviously taken on a subject you have deep feelings about. Your concerns are deeply felt. Well done. Your installation shows you do remember.
The poem in "A Message Within" is :-
Dulce Et Decorum Est
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.
GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
Wilfred Owen
*** Julia's 18th B'day ***
On the 3rd of October this year my little girl turned 18 years old, to mark this milestone she had her first tattoo done, one that she had been looking forward to getting for the last few years. It's a tribute to her Great Nan Florence who had to move away into residential care last year due to her suffering from dementia. Julia misses her very much as she spent alot of time with my Nan when she was small as after my divorce I still had to work full-time and so Julia spent her days with my Nan, all through her first years at school until she moved into secondary school.
Here are the photos of this momentous occasion...
This is the stencil once it had been placed on Julia's shoulder...
...time for the transformation to begin!
Here the outline has been completed, the blueness is where the stencil has been rubbed around the skin but the redness is real, you can see where the outlines appear "embossed" on the skin.
Here she is, the proud owner of her first tattoo!!!
I think she found it hard to sit for the 2.5 hours that it took to complete and I am so proud of her that she did it in one sitting.
It is already healing well and lightening up as it heals - it will be one awesome piece when it's completely healed up.
Tattoo by Ray Hunt of Diablo Tattoo.
This is Ray Hunt working his magic on Julia's tattoo.
This is Julia's b'day cake - for once we got one made for the occasion to give my Step-mum a well earned break.
This is Julia at the Texas Moon wearing her birthday sash and badges.
Ain't my baby just gorgeous :-)
Here's the happy couple again - tried to get the camera to show off the lights on Julia's badges and sash - not a bad attempt but a tad noisy. Still you can't have everything!
Here is Julia with James at the Texas Moon. She's doing her usual thing and posing to show off her new tattoo.
Here's Julia with her Dad, he came by the club to wish her a Happy Birthday.
The Final Update to the Tattoo
The final tattoo, updated following the passing of Nan Florence in 2010. The phrase "Always together, Eternally apart..." comes from the film LadyHawke and for Julia represents how she feels about losing her great Nan.
Julia's Second Car
Having had the Rover MOT'd last week, it failed abysmally, needing parts to fix it that we couldn't source for several months, maybe longer. So we decided to cut our losses and get something else, with a trip to Pontin's in May fast approaching and several Uni visits to make it seemed like the only real viable option. So my Dad, being the sterling chap that he is, did some shopping around and came up with a Ford Focus 1.6 5 door hatchback in black that Julia collected on Thursday. Its a little bigger than the Rover but Julia took it for a test drive and felt comfortable enough in it and so far so good. I've had my first trip in it and it's real quiet, be a right bonus when we have to drive down to Devon this summer for our holiday. It gets nice and warm quickly, something that we need right now with the weather still up and down, and has heated front and rear windows - again another nice touch when we are sitting there waiting for the condensation to clear...
Here's a couple of shots of the car and its new proud owner :-
Here's the car sitting outside our house, looks pretty cool eh?
Here's Julia posing behind the car.
Julia sitting in the driver's seat, she's getting used to the new clutch they fitted and where all the buttons and dials are.
Hopefully by buying a Ford we'll find it cheaper to run and get fixed when it needs it. The Rover proved very hard to get parts for and anything else for that matter.
Art in Action - II
This was the “team’s” second and last exhibition held on 24th March 2010 before they all go their separate ways into University or whatever. This time it was based around “My Town” and located at The Brook Street Theatre, which used to be the Old Town Hall many years ago. Exhibits came in from Julia, Stacie, Kelsey, Casey and Zoe and can be found in more details below.
I know that Julia spent many a long hour trawling through ideas for her outcome and once the decision on what to produce was made, many more hours actually producing her piece for the exhibition. Her idea was loosely based upon a book we bought whilst on holiday some years ago, Teddy’s Guide to the Isle of Wight. A whimsical look around the island taken from Teddy’s viewpoint and accompanied by many endearing photographs. Julia wanted her book to be more factual and aimed at the older children’s age group but thought incorporating the teddy was still relevant as everyone loves a teddy bear! After much research into the places she wanted to visit and talk about in the book, teddy was lovingly “created” by adding his stuffing, and duly christened Barney. Julia then proceeded to design and make outfits and props for him to satisfy her eventual photo shoot of the places she wanted to include in the book. Photos in the bag and the final task was the actual construction of the book, followed by comment postcards complete with letterbox to post them in and several A3 prints of Barney in a selection of places in and around Chatham. As usual she put 110% into her work and hopefully people’s comments at the exhibition and her eventual marks from college will reflect this.
This is a full length view of Julia's outcome, it shows the four A3 prints she did of some of the places Barney visited during the photo shoot.
Barney is there on the left of the table with his clothes and props, the final book of his fact finding and the comment postcards and post box.
Barney's Fact Finding Trip around Chatham
My piece is all about bringing back the history to those children who know nothing about Chatham. I've had a lot of inspiration from my Grand-parents who have told me thousands of stories that have amazed me. I also got inspiration from a trip to the Isle of Wight where I bought a "Teddies Guide to The Isle of Wight" book. This book gave me the idea of creating my very own tourist teddy who would travel back to Chatham to see the many changes that have happened over the years. With this book, I'd like to educate not only children but adults/tourists themselves, about what Chatham used to be like compared to what it is now.
Julia Ware
Several other schools also exhibited at the Brook Theatre, their theme being somewhat broader to encompass the Medway Towns. I was amazed at all the different variations that they created given a very similar theme all round.
Julia's 3rd Tattoo...
We were back at Diablo Tattoo last Thursday, 1st April 2010, for my back piece and Julia's 3rd tattoo. This one was for moi as she was having a dragon head on her foot and then a floral piece coming from the dragon up her leg to just below her knee. The dragon was stencilled on but the rest was hand drawn by the legendary Ray Hunt before he committed the tattoo to her skin.
Here are a few snaps of the process unfolding...
Here Ray is starting to draw the design out on her leg using the images she brought into the studio as subject material.
The green pen showed the initial very rough draft where he just uses shapes to indicate the positions of the pieces.
The main design is starting to be drawn in red pen and the final outline will be done in blue. This will be the guideline for the final tattoo.
The image on the right shows the final design in pen on her leg before he started tattooing. Obviously the final tattooed lines will be much finer, but it gives one an idea of what the final outcome will be.
This is the master at work. If you are looking for a quality tattoo then look no further than this top bloke here. He's not cheap but then if you want quality you got to be prepared to pay top dollar for it.
Here's the final piece being proudly shown off by Julia. You can still see odd bits of the felt pen around the edges but obviously this will wash off once you can give it a good scrub (and I don't mean when you get home I mean when its properly healed!). Like my back piece hers is in the process of shedding and itching.
For those that care about these things the whole piece took a little over 3hrs to draw and tattoo.
College Exam Results!
Thursday 19th August 2010 saw the A-Level results being dished out for this years budding University candidates. Julia got her coveted place at Writtle College to do a BA(Hons) in Interior Design with her fantastic results.
Her National Award in Art & Design was a Distinction, and her Advanced Diploma in Creative Media led to 3A*'s, 3B's and 1D which was a group project done early on when they didn't really know what was expected and how the marking would be done. The college have kept back her work at the exam boards request so it can be shown to this years new students as an example of what is expected of them!
I cant begin to tell you just how proud of her I am, given that many young people fritter away their education, she's focussed on her future and is full of enthusiasm to get where she wants to be.
Well done Julia!!!
Julia Goes To Uni...
Last Sunday we drove up to Writtle College to drop Julia off to start her BA(Hons) Interior Design course. After much deliberation she decided to stay in Halls, so moved most of her worldly goods into Tabor 2 Hall of residence. After unpacking and trying to make the place seem a Home from Home, we wandered around the site so she could get her bearings and at least find the Writz Restaurant, which is a far cry from the old school canteen era.
As we drove away I felt so bad leaving her behind, its the first time we've spent real time apart and I know it was so hard for her watching us drive away. But she met up with the girl across the hall from her, Emily, and they had tea together before heading down to the hall for the Rules chat before the Meet 'n' Greet in the Baa.
I was most relived to have a chat with her later via Skype and learn that she had already made some mates and felt like "she'd been there for years"! As the week has progressed and she's partied the evenings away with her new found friends I feel a sense of relief that she seems to have settled in OK. She's had some lessons and suspect these will start in earnest this week but the staff seem friendly and despite a few teething problems with the rooms (No TV and dodgy showers) she's doing OK.
She came home this weekend which was cool, it was good to see her again, and she'll be back next weekend to party for her 19th b'day! Writtle College where she's studying is only about an hour away from here through the Dartford Tunnel which can be an unknown quantity at times but she has her trusty Sat Nav and she'll soon get the hang of the route.
I'm confident that as ever Julia will throw her heart into the course and do her very best and that's all any Mum can ask of their child. I am so proud that she's achieved her goal of getting a Uni place and look forward to the ever growing collection of photos on Facebook showing her life at University!
This is Julia with some of her new mates
(L-R) Alex, Kirsty, Tom and Julia
Julia's 19th Birthday!!!
Yesterday was Julia's 19th birthday, at least it fell on a weekend what with her being at Uni this year, so we got to spend most of the day with her. Saturday nite was party nite where she went clubbing with some of her mates and James. Didn't get home till 2:45am, needless to say I'd already gone to bed long before then :-)
Theme was uniforms so Julia had already got her soldier chick outfit the week before and James had found some bargains at an old army surplus store so off they went with several of Julia's girl friends. With a booth reserved at Envy they proceeded to dance the nite away...
Sunday we hooked up with her Nan & Grandad
and we had a real nice Sunday lunch at a local pub. Back to Nan & Grandad's after for a cuppa and a chat before we had to mosey home so Julia could collect her stuff for heading back to her Uni Halls.
Cant believe she's 19yrs old already, sometimes it seems only yesterday that she was a little girl. I certainly don't feel 19yrs older but time passes so fast when you have kids. They change real quickly in a short space of time so it's important to spend time with them. At this rate she'll soon be 21! Have to start planning the mother of all parties :-)
Julia & James get Engaged !!!
Julia and James got engaged on their 5th anniversary, 12th May 2011! They decided to go away for the weekend to celebrate, so James booked a chalet on the Isle of Wight and off they set. They had already discussed engagement between themselves and he'd spoken to me about asking for my approval shall we say, so it wasn't too much of a surprise to hear he'd got down on one knee and popped the question!
Here are a few photos of Julia and James celebrating their engagement at the Texas Moon.
Well done James and congratulations to the both of you.
Looking over their card from the club members.
A dance for the happy couple.
Showing off the ring - a lovely solitaire diamond in white gold with a small heart shape in the area underneath the stone setting.
Julia's 3rd Tattoo (Updated)...
Julia was back at Diablo Tattoo on 16th August 2011 for the final part of the extension to her leg tattoo started back in April 2010. She had the initial outlines done in July along with a lily and today got the rest shaded in. It's a massive piece and once healed will look awesome. Here's the piece as taken in the studio straight after it was done.
It's already starting to lighten up and reached the peeling stage which makes it look a tag ragged until it's finished. Once healed the shading will be light like the section at the bottom of her leg.
The koi and dragon are both typical Japanese characters, according to Japanese legend, if a koi succeeded in climbing the falls at a point called Dragon gate on the Yellow River, it would be transformed into a dragon. The koi is associated with perseverance in adversity and strength of purpose. Because of it's strength and determination to overcome obstacles, it stands for courage and the ability to attain high goals.
The koi swimming downstream with a dragon incorporated into the tattoo means that the dragon falls have successfully been achieved, your hardships have been overcome and you are no longer fighting the current.
This piece sums up how Julia's dealt with the breakdown of her Dad and me and how she's overcome all the heartache she's felt about her relationship with her Dad.
Julia's 4th Tattoo
Julia has had another tattoo, this time on her other foot. Another meaningful phrase "Don't let your past dictate who you are, but let it be part of who you will become". This time the phrase is from My Big Fat Greek Wedding.